It seems those steel sheets that have been laid down are to block the high radiation that may be coming from the water in the basement, according to Kyodo News Japanese.

It was indicated as much by a tweet on July 3 from a worker currently at Fukushima I Nuke Plant.

No information on how high the radiation of the contaminated water in the basement may be.

The Reactor 3 used MOX-fuel, and the contaminated water that accumulated in the basement got there after it went over the melted (or partially melted) MOX-fuel. The temperature inside the Reactor Pressure Vessel remains high.

High radiation or not, TEPCO seems determined to start the injection of nitrogen into the Reactor 3 Containment Vessel by July 17, which is the deadline by which the step 1 in TEPCO’s roadmap, “stable cooling” of the reactors is to be completed. The date has also been indicated by the government to be the day when the government will announce the “reduction” (believe it or not) of the planned evacuation zone.

Extend and pretend. And the bots and carbons alike will have to brave the unknown amount of high radiation at the plant so that the government can “extend and pretend”.

After “Warrior” the vacuum robot swept up “sand and dust” on the floor (whatever it was) which TEPCO said was causing the high radiation in the area (right below the Spent Fuel Pool) and the radiation level didn’t go down, TEPCO is laying down the steel sheets on the floor to help shield the radiation.

So the very high radiation is from the floor, and it measures over 100 millisieverts/hour 1 meter above the floor.

In June when the workers entered the Reactor 3’s reactor building for the first time since the March 11 start of the accident at the plant, they were seen swiping the floor and collecting samples (see the video). The result of the sample analysis has never been disclosed.